In the Beginning 🐣 I LiveJournaled

Back in the ’00s, like many now-eldering millenials, I made a LiveJournal. With a LiveJournal’s Internet superpowers, I could broadcast our generation’s voice to the public. We were angry at this, high-fiving about that—flexing the muscles of what the Internet’s all about—

Now I hope to turn this passion for blogging into a sustainable income through two honest methods of patronage for my writing:

if you’re interested in the props from my stories (ex., books, art supplies, and games I talk about), then purchase those toys through my Amazon Associates links, so that I receive a tip on your purchase;

I don’t like the flashy, distracting banner ads or pop-ups that I see some blogs use. I’ll still read the blog, but it’s not a monetizing decision I’d make as an artist exhibiting my writing to the public.

That said, if you find my aforementioned methods Amazon links distracting, let me know—give me feedback!—so that I can improve your reading experience, create a pleasant virtual reality for whatever community is interested in this creative space, this launchpad, and we can move forward as without content that doesn’t overwhelmor underwhelm.

I might think about ads more than most people, but that’s because I spent five years of my life as a full-time copywriter and copyeditor—one year SEO marketing private schools to vets with the G.I. Bill; two more years refining Google ads for SEM campaigns in the US, England, Australia, and New Zealand; and two more years in the video game industry, the best full-time employment of my life—so a good portion of my writer-brain is dedicated to copywriter mentality;

as much of my writer-brainer is refined in rhetoric and teaching, after instructing at Fresno State, Madera College, McLane High School, and still moonlighting at Fresno City College and College of the Sequoias.

I like to think of my writer-brain—the language center in the neural miracle inside my head—as many diverse neurons; and color helps me illustrate the different personas:

🖤 Anxiety Neuron is interested in risk, compassion, and clarity.Maybe people love unicorns so much because they embody all of our creative potential in their rainbow horns. Or their rainbow blood. Do they have rainbow blood? I know their horn is a panacea. Or is the blood a panacea? I need to write a story about unicorns, step up to the challenge of brushing up on my lore.

½ Fiction 😘 A Story from Solvang

While we were walking down a busy street in Solvang, I shouted at Chase, “Wait!”

So we waited, him posing, me at the ready, until no cars were zipping by.

I snapped a cute shot of him in front of lovely architecture, with an even lovelier street lamp, no doubt electric-powered, but reminiscent of a European gas lamp nonetheless;

and I felt a fairy-tale glimmer rustle up from my imagination, a gentle image of gas-lit puddles, cast like gold dust along the road, just for a moment, guiding our way.

Writing Philosophy 🤪 Fiction is Truth

Literature enthusiasts like to define fiction as “truth with a capital T,” which meant nothing to me in freshman English, and everything during my MFA’s autobiographical fiction project.

Within fiction lies truth became my chant, my alchemy, as I spun my past experiences—moments that were too dark for me to re-handle directly—and re-shaped it,
pulling blackness
from it, frothy gunk, untilmy experiences were radiant
spools of iridescent thread, materials
I could use to re-purpose a memoir
into an autobiographical, horror-
laced fairy tale,
½ fiction, ½ honesty.
Now I write all my fiction this way.

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Published by Kourtnie

Kourtnie McKenzie holds an MFA (Fiction) from Fresno State and a BA in English (Literature Studies) from Cal State Fullerton. When she isn't writing novellas, she's moonlighting as a professor at Fresno City College and College of the Sequoias. To read more of her writing, visit en.gravatar.com/kourtnie.
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